Scientific researchers: Alberto Salazar may have been wrong in trying to change Mary Cain's form

I feel sorry for Mary Cain in that she should have gone to a college with a good track program and developed there. When you put yourself in the business of professional running, you're in the business and if not developed properly, you can really lose the potential that you had. I read what she wrote and do believe her. Despite his previous coaching from Dellinger (who IMO could develop runners on an individual basis), Salazar seems to have adopted a one size fits all approach, plus other questionable methods.

Salazar's biggest failing was trying to unscientifically change her weight.

Can you relate your comment to the topic of the thread? Beyond including the words "Mary Cain" and "Salazar", it seems like you decided to write your unrelated opinion?

connect the dots for me wrote:

Can you relate your comment to the topic of the thread? Beyond including the words "Mary Cain" and "Salazar", it seems like you decided to write your unrelated opinion?

My opinion is this. I never believed as a coach in obsessing with form. When I was at Cornell, I felt like most athletes by the time I got rhem already had a set form that was probably most efficient for their own body. Now, Cain is a slightly different case as Salazar started to work with her in HS.

One of my alltime favorite quotes about all of this type of crap came from John Kellogg. It was along the lines of "Low mileage, high intensity, plyos and weights. That's code words for drugs."

And I'm actually not brigning that up because I'm saying Salazar had these athletes on drugs.

I'm just saying it because I believe when a coach acts like they have a secret, it's normally a smoke-screen or just the coach fooling himself. Remember, the L-Carnitine obsession. It didn't actually work. I guess the only advantage of obsessing on most of this stuff is showing yourself that you are 100% committed.

I have 20+ years of coaching at the college level. I have never even thought about changing a runners form. I mean we did form drills, strides, etc. but i would not correct an athlete in a race , workout, long run regarding their form. I have always thought a runners body will find its most economical way to move from point A to point B. In sprint when efferot is maximal form makes a difference. Past the 1500 I feel that economy is more important than form. Anecdotally how many elite runners do you see at the 800 versus how many at the marathon that have poor form but are winning?

So I would just focus on running relaxed and getting in mileage.

Last sentence is spot on.

I'm agree totally with rojo. Distinctly remember Colm O'Connell being asked about John Ngugi's uneven, awkward looking form after one of his five WXC titles. O'Connell's response was that he might start to think about it if someone started beating Ngugi. Otherwise, he was going to assume it was working pretty well. Just look at Zatopek, or Paula Radcliffe-good examples of unusual "forms" that got them to the line first, almost every time.

So, coaches can't correct form because they cannot judge the ramifications both in terms of whether there will be improved efficiency and whether the changes will cause problems. I would generally agree with that.

But, it is certainly true that there is such a thing as good running form. And people do make improvement in there running form as they develop. I have seen my kids' running form improve just through them playing soccer and having their coaches tell them to get on their toes when they are sprinting and take faster steps.

So, if a coach can't correct form, can an athlete? Or is there a certain point in a runner's development where the die is cast?

Let's run seems to be on a "scientific research" applied to running kick lately. It's a good start, so kudos. Maybe in the future the studies will be trusted for other things.

Sounds like you are also having a dig a Pete Julian here. They aren't exactly forth coming with their training, and we know DB is a low mileage and weight work guy. I'd be careful making broad sweeping comments with really putting context behind the,

At the time a good number of the posters on these boards were skeptical of Salazar's obsession with Cain's "mechanics" (others, of course, thought her mechanics were terrible). I think that Mary Cain took his advice dead seriously. What 17/18 year old wouldn't? I think the whole enterprise was a tragedy. But we'll never be able to prove, that his coaching was in error. Science has its limits in many things.

Obsession with mechanics

Obsession with weight

Obsession with overtraining

Bad for Mary Cain's running.

Coaches in all sports like to change successful athletes because they think it will make them better. Most of the time it doesn't

Like Jordan Hasay doing HEAVY weight squats.......and being injured most of the time since.

A lot of things coaches have their athletes do are just very bad ideas.

I am a biomechanics researcher, and wouldn't say that anything in that article is exactly news. This isn't a criticism of Hutch, he's just brought attention to it outside of academia which is a great thing.

While the specific study discussed is novel, it's been established for quite a while that someone's specific running or walking biomechanics already represent an energetic optimization of the current variables at play ("requested" speed, incline, ground/shoe stiffness, active ROM, muscular strength/endurance etc.). You can see this from studies where these variables are controlled or changed - we respond very quickly to find the lowest energy style possible within the free variables available to us. This is an evolutionary feature of humans - we are a species designed to walk or run long distances, and doing so inefficiently has consequences. By imposing artificial constraints (ie. certain aesthetic styles) on someone you're likely moving them further from the optimal.

I wouldn't say that it's totally incorrect to try to change someone's form. While one's nervous system adopts the most optimal form, this is based on "current conditions," which aren't necessarily the most optimal for that person. So for example, someone with weak abdominal muscles would run in the way that is most efficient given this weakness, but it is possible that their absolute efficiency would be improved by "unlocking" different form possibilities through a weights/core program. So working on stuff like ROM, neuromuscular activation, power, strength etc. through non-running ancillary training might help improve absolute running economy for an individual.

This is a subtlety that is important but often missed. A coach or a biomechanist or an algorithm cannot identify/prescribe what specify global parameters make a runner efficient because a runner's style is a consequence of complicated interactions in an individual's physiological set-up. But, this individual's set-up can be improved to some extent to allow them to run in a way that is more efficient.

She ran 2:03 as a Freshman in high school off of about 25 miles a week with two track sessions each week.

stan the corgi wrote:

I feel sorry for Mary Cain in that she should have gone to a college with a good track program and developed there. When you put yourself in the business of professional running, you're in the business and if not developed properly, you can really lose the potential that you had. I read what she wrote and do believe her. Despite his previous coaching from Dellinger (who IMO could develop runners on an individual basis), Salazar seems to have adopted a one size fits all approach, plus other questionable methods.

If she went to college and flamed out we would all be talking about how she should have skipped college and went pro rather than wasting her talent in college for meaningless NCAA races.

Same thing with form. If you don't make a change, then everyone talks about their strange form and the lack of work they have done to fix it. See Hunter or any of the other guys that don't look smooth when running fast.

My take away from Mary Cain was that AlSal was nowhere near as professional as we thought. Cain wasn't on some fancy nutrition plan to lean her out. The plan for AlSal making fun of how fat she was. Not exactly what I would have expected.

In the end we will never be able to figure out if form work helps or not. Way too many confounding factors to figure out if swinging your arms a bit differently has reduced your O2 consumption or increased your max speed. And while you can make fun of plyos and strength training all you want, they are one of the few proven ways of increasing running economy.

He ma y have been wrong running harmful test cream on his own kids too.

Check that... the guy was dead wrong. Jeopardizing your children’s health is a lowlife move.

2013, Mary Cain had an 800m personal best of 1:59.51; 2013, Ajee Wilson had an 800 personal best of 1:58.21. Mary Cain was born May, 1996; Ajee Wilson was born May, 1994. Considering Cain is nearly exactly two years younger than Wilson, Cain was in great position as a future 800m/1500m great instead of a 1500m-10000m athlete.

Salazar was not training Cain to be an 800m specialist which was an error. Cain, as a teenager had the wrong coach. As a teenager, Cain's running form, her walking form and the way she carried herself could have been altered in a positive manner by power lifting. Cain should have maxed out her 800m ability as a teenager. Sprinting coaches take teenagers and improve their form. If we view 800m as nearly a long sprint, Cain could have improved much if she got powerful and changed her running form.

Salazar himself had terrible looking form but was obviously very efficient. Maybe he thinks in hindsight that if he had “fixed” his form he could have been faster?